2-hour Board Meetings

[Lisa Heft]

Hi, Martin -

You wrote:
<The Board, chaired now by an "ENGO" that I do some work with, has asked
that I facilitate three consecutive 2-hour board meetings in Open
Space. Can you share with me some of your learnings doing such meetings?
Any
warnings?>

I have found it's useful to do a 3-hour Open Space (if that's all there
is available timewise) to highlight issues and bring people together for
a wee bit of talking around those issues - that's like an Opening Circle
/ Agenda setting, then 2   45-minute sessions, then a Closing Circle.

2 hours to me sounds like time only to raise issues but not work on them
much, and not much ability to cross-pollinate or shift thinking.
Sometimes only time for 1 session, so not a lot of movement possible
between thoughts and ideas and differences in thinking.  Okay so great
for raising issues but who's supposed to own and work on them.  I've
seen it done well, but for (for example) an executive team to ask a
membership organization what's important to them for the coming year
(the group in OS is not expected to work on or carry forward on anything
- it's more like a needs assessment).  So my question is why Open Space,
what are the deliverables, is this the right tool, can OS provide what
these meetings are being convened for, and so on.

Like Harrison, I say fight for more time....

You'll do great, of course...

Lisa
___________________________
L i s a   H e f t
Consultant, Facilitator, Educator
O p e n i n g  S p a c e
2325 Oregon
Berkeley, California
94705-1106   USA
+01 510 548-8449
lisaheft at openingspace.net
www.openingspace.net


-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Martin
Giannini
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 11:25 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: 2-hour Board Meetings

Hi OSListers,

Ireland has cooked up a veggie soup of sorts, throwing all of the
Environmental NGOs together into a collective pool for the purposes of
communicating both ways in one Forum and to distribute resources to
them collectively rather than piecemeal.

The Board, chaired now by an "ENGO" that I do some work with, has asked
that I facilitate three consecutive 2-hour board meetings in Open
Space.

Can you share with me some of your learnings doing such meetings?  Any
warnings?

Thanks a million!

Martin Giannini

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist